Streeterville High-rise Passes Zoning Panel

Alderman Prevails Over Angry Residents

August 25, 1999|By Melita Marie Garza, Tribune Staff Writer.

Chicago aldermen are legendary for laying down the law in their own wards.

But a feisty Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) enlarged that tradition Tuesday, convincing the City Council Zoning Committee to flout existing law with its approval of a new ordinance that would give the go-ahead to a controversial multimillion-dollar, luxury high-rise project planned for Streeterville.

"Not everyone can build a building with the sensitivity of Mies van der Rohe," said Natarus, defending Bruce Abrams' LR Development Co. and its plans to build a 330-unit project on a 2.3-acre site near Lake Michigan.

The site abuts Lake Shore Drive to the east, Chestnut Street to the north and Pearson Street to the south. The project primarily is to be built on property Northwestern University received in trust from Col. Robert McCormick, former publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

But the development site, at 840 Lake Shore Drive, also includes the Lake Shore Center, now a graduate-student dorm, as well as a 460-car parking garage on Chestnut Street that Abrams agreed not to redevelop.

The project has pitted neighbor against neighbor in a community that includes some of the most expensive real estate in the U.S.

Opponents formed their own community group, "Save Our Streeterville/Residents Allied to Preserve Streeterville," complaining that the 24-year-old neighborhood organization, the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR), did not speak for them. SOAR endorsed the project.

SOAR President Rosalind Keeling lauded Natarus for trying to negotiate differences between Abrams, Northwestern University and the residents.

"Those attempts, however, proved futile," Keeling said. "SOAR believes the proposal before you today is a fair compromise for our community."

Natarus dismissed the objectors, saying that "line of sight," not density, was their primary concern.

"Do I have a constitutional legal right to an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan?" Natarus asked rhetorically.

In effect, under the Abrams plan, the skyline along one of the most picturesque portions of the lakefront would more than double in height, drastically remolding its visage.

Abrams' proposal includes a 35-story tower on the west, a 16-story tower in the center and a 26-story building on the east. For the Lake Shore Center site, Abrams already had committed to building no higher than the existing 18-story structure.

Aside from the Lake Shore Center, the tallest building now on the site is a 14-story building that formerly was part of the American Hospital Association headquarters.

Marshall Strabala, an architect with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill who lives at 860 Lake Shore Drive, presented four bound volumes of testimony against the project, emphasizing that he was speaking as a private citizen, not in his role as a Skidmore executive.

Strabala argued that the proposed building was out of scale with the neighborhood, pointing out that seven nearby structures have fewer than 10 stories, 12 nearby buildings have fewer than 20 stories and 14 have fewer than 30 stories.

"It just doesn't fit with the rest of the neighborhood," said Strabala, who introduced an alternative high-rise plan that he said would resolve all residents' complaints and still make money for the developer and Northwestern.

Strabala also disputed the developer's interpretation of the city zoning ordinances, saying Abrams was not permitted under the code to build as large a project as LR Development has proposed.

Reuben Hedlund, a former City Plan Commission chairman and an attorney representing Strabala and other residents opposed to the project, said the Plan Commission violated the law by failing to hold a community hearing for residents.

After Hedlund reiterated Strabala's objections to the application of the zoning law, Natarus amended the ordinance to allow the project to proceed even if it contradicts zoning ordinances.

At 3 p.m., after more than three hours of testimony, the Zoning Committee voted to approve the project.

Zoning Committee Chairman William Banks sighed with relief at the motion for adjournment."I'm glad the 36th Ward has nothing higher than two-flats," Banks said.